Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian leader Vladimir Putin both point the finger at Europe and the United States for what has now become one of the biggest mass migrations of people in modern times.

"To be honest, the whole Western world is to be blamed in my opinion on this issue," Erdogan told CNN on Thursday.

Putin, talking to reporters Friday, said it's the West's wrong-headed foreign policy in the Middle East and Northern Africa that's at the root of the crisis.

Desperate men and women, with little children in tow, are fleeing war-ravaged Syria or Iraq in overcrowded and often deadly voyages by land or sea. When they reach their destination - Europe -- they are met with a patchwork of different policies.

Photos:Europe's migration crisis in 25 photos

Photos:Europe's migration crisis in 25 photos

A woman cries after being rescued in the Mediterranean Sea about 15 miles north of Sabratha, Libya, on July 25, 2017. More than 6,600 migrants and refugees entered Europe by sea in January 2018, according to the UN migration agency, and more than 240 people died on the Mediterranean Sea during that month.

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Photos:Europe's migration crisis in 25 photos

Refugees and migrants get off a fishing boat at the Greek island of Lesbos after crossing the Aegean Sea from Turkey in October 2015.

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Photos:Europe's migration crisis in 25 photos

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Photos:Europe's migration crisis in 25 photos

Migrants step over dead bodies while being rescued in the Mediterranean Sea, off the coast of Libya in October 2016. Agence France-Presse photographer Aris Messinis was on a Spanish rescue boat that encountered several crowded migrant boats. Messinis said the rescuers counted 29 dead bodies -- 10 men and 19 women, all between 20 and 30 years old. "I've (seen) in my career a lot of death," he said. "I cover war zones, conflict and everything. I see a lot of death and suffering, but this is something different. Completely different."

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Photos:Europe's migration crisis in 25 photos

Authorities stand near the body of 2-year-old Alan Kurdi on the shore of Bodrum, Turkey, in September 2015. Alan, his brother and their mother drowned while fleeing Syria. This photo was shared around the world, often with a Turkish hashtag that means "Flotsam of Humanity."

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Photos:Europe's migration crisis in 25 photos

Migrants board a train at Keleti station in Budapest, Hungary, after the station was reopened in September 2015.

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Photos:Europe's migration crisis in 25 photos

Children cry as migrants in Greece try to break through a police cordon to cross into Macedonia in August 2015. Thousands of migrants -- most of them fleeing Syria's bitter conflict -- were stranded in a no-man's land on the border.

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Photos:Europe's migration crisis in 25 photos

The Kusadasi Ilgun, a sunken 20-foot boat, lies in waters off the Greek island of Samos in November 2016.

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Photos:Europe's migration crisis in 25 photos

Migrants bathe outside near a makeshift shelter in an abandoned warehouse in Subotica, Serbia, in January 2017.

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Photos:Europe's migration crisis in 25 photos

A police officer in Calais, France, tries to prevent migrants from heading for the Channel Tunnel to England in June 2015.

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Photos:Europe's migration crisis in 25 photos

A migrant walks past a burning shack in the southern part of the "Jungle" migrant camp in Calais, France, in March 2016. Part of the camp was being demolished -- and the inhabitants relocated -- in response to unsanitary conditions at the site.

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Photos:Europe's migration crisis in 25 photos

Migrants stumble as they cross a river north of Idomeni, Greece, attempting to reach Macedonia on a route that would bypass the border-control fence in March 2016.

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Photos:Europe's migration crisis in 25 photos

In September 2015, an excavator dumps life vests that were previously used by migrants on the Greek island of Lesbos.

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Photos:Europe's migration crisis in 25 photos

The Turkish coast guard helps refugees near Aydin, Turkey, after their boat toppled en route to Greece in January 2016.

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Photos:Europe's migration crisis in 25 photos

A woman sits with children around a fire at the northern Greek border point of Idomeni in March 2016.

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Photos:Europe's migration crisis in 25 photos

A column of migrants moves along a path between farm fields in Rigonce, Slovenia, in October 2015.

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Photos:Europe's migration crisis in 25 photos

A ship crowded with migrants flips onto its side in May 2016 as an Italian navy ship approaches off the coach of Libya. Passengers had rushed to the port side, a shift in weight that proved too much. Five people died and more than 500 were rescued.

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Photos:Europe's migration crisis in 25 photos

Refugees break through a barbed-wire fence on the Greece-Macedonia border in February 2016, as tensions boiled over regarding new travel restrictions into Europe.

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Photos:Europe's migration crisis in 25 photos

Policemen try to disperse hundreds of migrants by spraying them with fire extinguishers during a registration procedure in Kos, Greece, in August 2015.

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Photos:Europe's migration crisis in 25 photos

A member of the humanitarian organization Sea-Watch holds a migrant baby who drowned following the capsizing of a boat off Libya in May 2016.

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Photos:Europe's migration crisis in 25 photos

A migrant in Gevgelija, Macedonia, tries to sneak onto a train bound for Serbia in August 2015.

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Photos:Europe's migration crisis in 25 photos

Migrants, most of them from Eritrea, jump into the Mediterranean from a crowded wooden boat during a rescue operation about 13 miles north of Sabratha, Libya, in August 2016.

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Photos:Europe's migration crisis in 25 photos

Refugees rescued off the Libyan coast get their first sight of Sardinia as they sail in the Mediterranean Sea toward Cagliari, Italy, in September 2015.

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Photos:Europe's migration crisis in 25 photos

Local residents and rescue workers help migrants from the sea after a boat carrying them sank off the island of Rhodes, Greece, in April 2015.

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Photos:Europe's migration crisis in 25 photos

Investigators in Burgenland, Austria, inspect an abandoned truck that contained the bodies of refugees who died of suffocation in August 2015. The 71 victims -- most likely fleeing war-ravaged Syria -- were 60 men, eight women and three children.

Earlier this week, the image of 2-year-old Aylan Kurdi's body, face down in the surf of a Turkish beach, rocketed around the world. He died along with his 4-year-old brother and mother -- three of several thousand refugees and migrants who have perished while trying to find safety in Europe.

Europe's response so far has been disjointed and divided, prompting nations to scramble for a cohesive response.

The crisis will be front-and-center when EU foreign ministers meet at an informal gathering in Luxembourg on Friday. The nations will send their home ministers for emergency talks in Brussels on September 14.

Putin: Europe 'blindly following U.S.'

Putin, speaking to the Russian news agency TASS, said he warned the West about the possible consequences of its Mideast and Africa policy several years ago.

"What is this policy about? This is imposing its standards without taking into consideration historic, religious, national and cultural specifics of these regions," Putin told the Russian news agency TASS at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok. "This is first of all, the policy of our American partners."

"I am looking with surprise at certain American mass media now criticizing Europe for an excessively tough, as they believe, treatment of migrants," Putin added.

Europe is "blindly following U.S. instructions" and suffering greatly, he said.